Individualism Is A Principle, Not Politics

I said in my last Daily Freedom, “the proper relationship between feelings and choices is a large subject which will be continued in the next Daily Freedom.“The subject has turned out to be more difficult than I realized. I’m working on it, and it will be published in an upcoming Daily Freedom.

In my research I’ve been made very much aware that even where individualism is promoted, it is not truly individualism at all that is meant, but a form of politics, frequently presented as “individualism verses collectivism.” But individualism is not a political system, it is a principle of ethics, as I stated in the last Daily Freedom, “No Problem For Individualists.”

In all the movements and “freedom” oriented organizations, institutes, associations, and programs, today, individualism is seldom mentioned at all, and when it is, it is always presented as part of some political view of how societies ought to be organized. If you examine the content of every linked page provided on the Free Individual’s, “Online Resources,” page, you will discover that individualism is almost never mentioned, and that when it is, it is presented as, “individualism verses collectivism,” as competing political systems.

I find the reduction of individualism to nothing more than politics obscene, and for the same reason and Ayn Rand, though an atheist, found the reduction of religion to mere politics obscene.

“From a report on a television discussion in Denver, Colorado, I gather that one member of this movement has made its goal and meaning a little clearer. ‘God,’ he said, ‘is a process of creative social intercourse.’

“This, I submit, is obscene. I, who am an atheist, am shocked by so brazen an attempt to rob religion of whatever dignity and philosophical intention it might once have possessed. I am shocked by so cynically enormous a degree of contempt for the intelligence and the sensibility of people, specifically of those intended to be taken in by the switch.

“Now, if men give up all abstract speculation and turn to the immediate conditions of their existence—to the realm of politics—what values or moral inspiration will they find?” [The Objectivist, April 1966, “Our Cultural Value-Deprivation.”]

Just as Ayn Rand understood reducing that which is the source of one’s values and principles, even a mistaken source like religion, deprives individuals of all moral inspiration, I know reducing individualism to mere politics removes all the moral power and inspiration of the principles of independent individualism, as well.

I am very much aware of the redundancy in the expression, “independent individualism,” but use it chiefly to differentiate the moral individualism of the Independent Individualist from the immoral political version promoted by most so-called anarchist, libertarian, and conservative freedom oriented organizations and WEB sites.

Permit me to continue the quote I started in the previous Daily Freedom, which expresses the profound moral basis of individualism.

“Man’s virtues are the qualities required for the preservation of his independence. They are personal qualities, unsocial by their nature and antisocial in any conflict of man against man. They are unsocial, because man cannot derive them from other men, cannot receive them as a gift from an outside source, but must generate them from within his own ego. They are profoundly selfish virtues, for they proceed from his ego, pertain to his ego and cannot be sacrificed to any consideration whatsoever. Without these virtues man cannot survive nor remain man.” [Emphasis mine.] [Adapted from “The Moral Basis Of Individualism,” The Journals of Ayn Rand, “Part 3 - Transition Between Novels.”]

Rand continues in that passage to enumerate and explain the virtues of individualism. I’ll simply list them here, and discuss them at length in another article:

The virtues of Individualism are integrity, responsibility, honesty, competence, productivity, dignity, and courage.

There is no political system that can produce a single one of these virtues which must come from the soul of the individualists themselves.